The COSE Ontology: Bringing the Semantic Web to Smart Environments

The number of smart appliances and devices in the home and office has grown dramatically in recent years. Unfortunately, these devices rarely interact with each other or the environment. In order to move from environments filled with smart devices to smart environments, there must be a framework for devices to communicate with each other and with the environment. This enables reasoners and automated decision makers to understand the environment and the data collected from it. Semantic web technologies provide this framework in a well-documented and flexible package. In this paper we present the Casas Ontology for Smart Environments (COSE) and accompanying data from a test smart environment and discuss the current and future challenges associated with a Smart Environment on the Semantic Web.